%AZhou, Faran%AWilliams, Joseph%ASun, Shuaishuai%AMalliakas, Christos%AKanatzidis, Mercouri%AKemper, Alexander%ARuan, Chong-Yu%BJournal Name: Nature Communications; Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 1; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2022-12-02 05:17:10 %D2021%INature Publishing Group %JJournal Name: Nature Communications; Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 1; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2022-12-02 05:17:10 %K %MOSTI ID: 10360702 %PMedium: X %TNonequilibrium dynamics of spontaneous symmetry breaking into a hidden state of charge-density wave %XAbstract

Nonequilibrium phase transitions play a pivotal role in broad physical contexts, from condensed matter to cosmology. Tracking the formation of nonequilibrium phases in condensed matter requires a resolution of the long-range cooperativity on ultra-short timescales. Here, we study the spontaneous transformation of a charge-density wave in CeTe3from a stripe order into a bi-directional state inaccessible thermodynamically but is induced by intense laser pulses. With ≈100 fs resolution coherent electron diffraction, we capture the entire course of this transformation and show self-organization that defines a nonthermal critical point, unveiling the nonequilibrium energy landscape. We discuss the generation of instabilities by a swift interaction quench that changes the system symmetry preference, and the phase ordering dynamics orchestrated over a nonadiabatic timescale to allow new order parameter fluctuations to gain long-range correlations. Remarkably, the subsequent thermalization locks the remnants of the transient order into longer-lived topological defects for more than 2 ns.

%0Journal Article